Empty think tanks

Why are the best books on recent Indian history written abroad?

In the past three months, two excellent books have been published that have a significant bearing involving India in particular and South Asia in general. One concerns an event 42 years ago - the 1971 war for the independence of Bangladesh. The other is more recent in public memory - the attack on Mumbai on November 26, 2008. Both events marked turning points in India's relations with Pakistan and the US.

Now, neither book is significantly revisionist in content but are products of deep and careful research that have revealed novel, indeed shocking, facets that shaped the geopolitics of the region. Note, however, that neither book is written by an Indian. The Blood Telegram: Nixon, Kissinger and a Forgotten Genocide, published in September and focusing on the complicity of a US President and his National Security Advisor in the 1971 atrocities in Bangladesh, is written by an American, Gary J Bass. He is a professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton University (and a former reporter with The Economist). The Siege: The Attack on The Taj, published earlier this month, is written by Adrian Levy and Cathy Scott-Clark, both British journalists. The fact that foreigners have written books on significant events in India may be unremarkable by itself. But it speaks volumes for the Indian intellectual scene that neither is the product of an Indian researcher or journalist, many of whom have closely reported on both events.

Take The Blood Telegram. The foundation of the book is transcripts of the White House tapes of the Nixon presidency that were recently declassified. It is well known that the Nixon presidency supported the Pakistani dictator Yahya Khan as a link to the famous rapprochement with Mao's China. But Prof Bass' research revealed that this backing extended to overlooking Yahya Khan's killing spree in East Pakistan (modern Bangladesh) sending 10 million refugees into India and, as reprehensibly, suppressing dissent from within the American establishment to do so. The conversations between Nixon and Henry Kissinger reveal a level of cynicism and insensitivity that is breathtaking. True, there are many books authored by Indians, including policy insiders, on the Bangladesh war but the bulk of them focused on elements that had been assiduously reported in the media. It seems to have occurred to no Indian scholar that since Nixon had started the habit of recording official conversations during his presidency, transcripts of his discussions with officials on an issue that was roiling the foreign policy establishment at the time would have been available for the asking.

The Siege is another case in point and, in fact, closer to home. The writers have based their book on interviews with people, most of whom would have been easily, if not more, accessible to Indians: police and security officials, hotel staffers, victims, observers in India. Yet, five years after the event in which the local media gained an unprecedented ringside seat, not one has thought to do the painstaking hard work of a follow-up or had the imagination to, say, collaborate with a Pakistani journalist to cover the Pakistani side of events. Examples like this are legion. The Kargil War, for instance, has produced little more than a compilation of dispatches (in pale imitation of Michael Herr's Vietnam classic), the hijacking of IC 814, another seminal event for India with echoes in 26/11, produced one account by the Indian Airlines' pilot concerned and a couple of rehashes.

The dearth is largely explained by the fact that few media houses and research establishments are willing to give their staff the time, space and, most importantly, the money for such long-gestation projects. In that sense, the publication of The Blood Telegram and The Siege are, unwittingly, one more depressing commentary on the intellectually parlous state of Indian journalism and academics.